Though the fiscal prospects of the West have recently taken a turn to the south, reliance upon the almighty dollar continues to be a quick and phony fix for too many well-intentioned modern missionaries. Once again, our strength is our weakness. But the good news is that our growing weakness -- financial collapse -- may prove to be our great strength!

One of our CPMs.com members, Bruce G., has retrieved the timeless wisdom of early 20th century missionary strategist, Roland Allen, to remind us that money can never replace dependence upon Christ in laying the foundations for a spontaneous expansion of Christ's kingdom. Allen lived and ministered through the boom of the 1920s and the bust of the 1930s -- not unlike our own days. Through it all, his vision remained crystal clear: "Nothing is so weakening as the habit of depending upon others for those things which we ought to supply for ourselves," and "... dependence upon man produces sterility, dependence upon Christ produces spiritual and intellectual fecundity."

Thanks to Bruce G. for sharing with us this myth-shattering collection from Roland Allen. Read the rest of his article here.

During a trial in a Southern small-town, the prosecuting attorney called his first witness, an elderly grandmother to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"

She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you."

You think you're a big shot....

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?"

Mythiology is a neologism, a newly coined word. The term ‘mythiology’ was coined by a missionary colleague in South Asia. He used it to refer to one of those casually accepted truths about how to do missions, that may have elements of truth within it -- like most myths -- but in reality is either unbiblical or simply inaccurate. Mythiology sounds like a lispy mispronunciation of “missiology.” If missiology is the biblically sound, well-thought-out examination and implementation of missionary best practices, then mythiology is its defective alter ego. For one reason or another mythiology simply misses the boat.

Mythiology 101 is a place on the CPM website where we will expose misconceptions, half-truths, deceptions and delusions. Regardless of what you may think of classical Calvinism, it’s hard to argue with John Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity, the notion that every part of us (our minds included)

we continue to make foolish – and sometimes self-serving -- mistakes....

has been impacted, twisted, damaged by sin. This is why, even with the Holy Spirit’s help, we continue to make foolish – and sometimes self-serving -- mistakes that cause us to labor fruitlessly under false assumptions, sometimes for years.